


The Philosophy of Vectors

by spiral tree (sprl1199)



Category: Pandemic (Board Game)
Genre: CDC to the rescue, Gen, Much speculation about viruses, Original Characters - Freeform, Pandemics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprl1199/pseuds/spiral%20tree
Summary: Because really, what are the odds of four disease outbreaks emerging around the globe at the same moment in time?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [molybdomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/molybdomantic/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, molybdomantic! This story falls more within the traditional realm of storytelling than the unusual, but I hope you enjoy following along with our heroes as they theorize about the source(s) of infection popping up around the globe. Thank you for the excellent epidemiological prompt!

**[Day 0: Atlanta]**

“Hi Ruth,” Abigail called. When the other woman turned to face her, Abigail proffered a chocolate bar.

“Abigail!” Ruth smiled with genuine pleasure and inclined her head toward the chocolate. “What did you bring me this time?”

“Not sure. I think it's hazelnut going off the picture, but I don't read Cyrillic.”

“Well, let's see, shall we.” Taking the bar, Ruth turned her chair back toward her computer and began typing as Abigail swiped in to register her presence in the lab. It was a warm place, homey and fun. Ruth had decorated her cubicle walls with posters listing the Viral and Special Pathogen branch diseases of interest and Category A and B toxins, placing them alongside cat posters and a Minnie Mouse clock. 'Hang in There,' said a kitten that had been hanging in there every time Abigail had visited to drop off samples. Abigail thought Ruth did it to compensate for her inability to leave the same imprint of personality in the lab itself. 

“You're right, Abigail. According to this it's milk chocolate with hazelnuts and nougat.”

Jenner, Abigail’s colleague, leaned over Ruth's shoulder to peer at her screen. “It says it's bird milk chocolate.”

Ruth wide face crinkled in a smile. “Thank you, Abigail. You're a sweetheart.”

“How do you milk a bird?” Jenner asked.

Ruth placed the chocolate bar with the other candy on her shelf. Abigail had never seen her eat any, but she knew that, come the next time she had cause to visit the offices of the BSL-4 lab, the candy would be gone, most likely discarded by Ruth in the most inconspicuous trash can she could think of. Abigail liked to imagine her squirreling the sugar out in her Betty Boop lunchbox, furtive as a spy, although she wouldn't have minded if Ruth threw it away in front of her. Abigail knew that ultimately she only wanted the wrappers.

“Were you in Croatia again, dear?” Ruth asked.

“Belarus this time. They had a small vaccinia outbreak in some cattle there.”

“And it's Abigail Zedman to the rescue,” Jenner said. “Get your samples?”

“Already logged. You should get a box from the national lab in the next day or two, Ruth.”

“How lovely. You know I love adding to my collection.” Ruth rolled her chair back and interlaced her fingers across the swell of her belly. She had a very matronly figure, Abigail had always thought. Warm and maternal.

“I didn't put in the request for sequencing yet,” Abigail said, “but just so you have a head’s up, that’ll be coming. Barbara wants to compare the structure to what we've been getting out of Brazil.”

“Of course, dear. I'll get to it as soon as I have the sample in hand.”

Jenner leaned in and whispered, sotto voice. “Teacher's pet.”

“Now, Paul,” Ruth said, “it's not Abigail’s fault she's so much more likable than you.”

Jenner clutched his hand to his heart. “I'm wounded, wounded I say.”

“Are you in town for a while, Abigail?” Ruth asked.

“Just the day. I'm going back to Brazil tomorrow morning. Did you have a chance to sterilize my trapping equipment?”

“Of course, dear. It's ready for you.” Ruth indicated one of the battered silver Pelican boxes leaning against the wall. Abigail’s preferred set was marked with a virulent lime green smiley face sticker. She hadn't placed it there--the box had hosted the sticker ever since she'd started at CDC--but she liked it.

“How about you, Paul?” Ruth asked. “Are you also on your way out of the country, or will you be haunting the halls for a while yet?”

“I’ll have you know that I will soon be embarking to the mysterious and glamorous reaches of a little placed called Hudson, Iowa.”

“Dairy farm?” Abigail asked, and he winced in mock pain.

“More orf. I swear to you, I am so sick and tired of orf.”

“His overseas deployment training expired,” Abigail confided to Ruth. “Until he sits through the Department of State class, he can’t go anywhere that would be considered a high threat environment.”

“Laugh it up, Zedman,” Jenner said. “You’ll be right there with me in San Francisco next week for the conference.”

“That’s true, but it’s San Francisco. We can go to that Ghanaian place.”

“Mm, fufu,” Jenner said, and they grinned at each other.

Ruth beamed. “My VSP jetsetters.”

**

**[Day 1: Brazil]**

“Jorge, good. Just put it there, thanks.” Hands otherwise occupied, Abigail jerked her chin to the folding table in the corner of the tent holding an array of identical cages.

“Is that a squirrel?” Jorge’s English was fantastic--far better than Abigail’s Portuguese--and the melodic tones of his accent rendered the word charming.

“It's an agouti.” Abigail finished drawing her blood sample and capped it securely. She ran an affectionate finger down the sleeping animal's side before snapping off her top layer of gloves. “Let's get some air.”

Jorge waited patiently while Abigail removed the remainder of her protective equipment. It wasn't an especially long or complicated process, this project requiring only gloves, face shield, surgical mask, and goggles, but Abigail was sweating when she finished. In Brazil, she'd decided, she was always sweating, even in her twice daily cold showers at the hotel. She was going through four packets of Gatorade powder a day. She snagged number three, already rehydrated, as she ducked through the tent door.

The curtain of air that enveloped Abigail when she stepped outside was humid enough to swim in, but it was several degrees cooler than inside the tent, and she basked in it, unobtrusively lifting her elbows slightly to air the undersides of her arms.

Jorge politely pretended not to notice. “Camilla has invited the research team for dinner on Friday. Will you come?”

Abigail swung her arms and cracked her right shoulder. “Eight sweaty scientists in your dining room? Your wife is a saint, Jorge.”

“I am often reminded of such.” Jorge was in his late fifties, notoriously imperturbable and serene. His children made up for it by running roughshod across four different university campuses in Brazil, Abigail understood. “Will you come?”

“I'll do my best. I'm supposed to join a conference call Friday afternoon, but the last few have been pushed late.”

“It is no matter. You may use the phone in my office. Camilla will keep a plate warm for you.”

“Thank you.” Abigail smiled and shaded her eyes as the sun sank just low enough on the horizon to beam into her eye. The Pacaás Novos National Park stretched out before them in a blanket of jeweled tones and deepening shadows.

“She will never forgive me if I cannot convince you,” Jorge said. “She is a saint, but also she is the devil.”

“How's the study going?”

“Slowly. The records we want to see have been stored many years in one of many warehouses.” Jorge shrugged. “Perhaps they are lost entirely but the administrator does not wish to tell us.”

The study, separate to the work the Viral and Special Pathogens team was conducting with the local university but related on topic, was to review thirty years of smallpox vaccine data, comparing the vaccinia strains used in the vaccine with the strains currently circulating in the region. Jorge, Abigail had learned over her last three trips to Brazil, was discovering that the data retention policies of the state were not robust.

“Have you collected all the samples you require?” Jorge asked.

“All for this trip. I don't know, I may try and get another couple of mice. Maybe a guinea pig if our traps can catch one.”

“You believe it to be a possible reservoir?”

Abigail shrugged, finishing the last of her Gatorade. “In the same way that bats are a possible reservoir of MERS. Theoretically.”

Jorge smiled at her tone. “Perhaps they are all reservoirs of opportunity. It is a valid finding.”

“Not a helpful one.”

“Not all answers are so clean, my friend. Epidemiology is messy, as is life.”

Abigail eyed him from the corner of her eye. “I wish I could be as peaceful as you. I swear I spend my life running from one problem to the next.”

“It is the nature of the work. As for the rest, it will come with age and experience.”

Together they watched the sun climb a little lower, running deft fingers of light across the rain forest.

“It is beautiful,” Jorge said.

“I should request a tent with a window next time,” she said, and he smiled again.

“And I shall support your request.” He gestured to the forest, fingers graceful and defined as they traced the path of the sun. “Keeping perspective is the most valuable thing you can do.”

**

**[Day 5: Democratic Republic of the Congo]**

“If the province continues to delay transmitting the line list and case data, we're not going to be able to draw any conclusions quickly enough to do any good.” Sebastian said, his French rapid fire and precise.

“The district’s electricity has been down for two days.” Beatrice replied. Like Sebastian, she worked for WHO Geneva. In all other respects, Abigail had decided after her first ten minutes with both of them, they were as unalike as two people could be, regardless of the fact that both were Swiss. “No electricity means no computers, no internet.”

“They have a generator.”

“There is a fuel shortage. The country is just recovering from conflict, Sebastian.”

As he had done the last time this argument was put to him, Sebastian threw up his hands and didn't answer.

“When does the province believe they'll be able to send the data?” Abigail asked Cecilia, the local contact who had been assigned to babysit them. In her regular day to day job, Abigail thought she was the human resources manager.

Cecilia met her gaze, something she'd done from the first with Abigail and rarely managed with her WHO counterparts. “Two days, God willing. One of their people will take the bus to Kisanagi. There is an Internet cafe there.”

Sebastian flopped into one of the creaky wooden chairs they'd been granted for their temporary office. “Fine. We'll find something to do in the interim. I'm sure there are analyses from the last round of data that we haven't exploited as of yet.”

Abigail watched him mop his forehead with a handkerchief he'd pulled from his pocket, his curls sticking out in a rumpled disarray. He was being facetious, she knew. He'd sent her several emails since their last joint deployment to the DRC complaining that he'd run what he'd been given every which way he could think of and a few that would be truly surprising to qualified biostatisticians, and if he didn't get some new material to work with, he'd pull out his hair.

“You have projects you can run,” Beatrice told Sebastian. “Fabrice cleaned the historical data as you asked.”

Sebastian grimaced. “Fabrice.”

“He worked very hard on it. You should at least thank him.” Another set of thrown hands from Sebastian and Beatrice turned to Cecilia. “Madam Fayulu has requested a lunch meeting. Would you be so good as to show me the way?”

“Of course.”

“Dr. Zedman, would you like to join me?” Beatrice asked with a gentle smile in Abigail’s direction that reminded her of Jorge.

Abigail wanted to go--she'd met Madam Fayulu only once and had been thoroughly impressed with her--but she was overdue for both a check in with Jennifer and a shower. “I can't, but thank you.”

“What about me?” Sebastian asked.

“You're still on probation. Or have you forgotten Cabinda?”

“I didn't think she'd cry! Anyone working out here needs to be a little thick-skinned.”

“Exactly,” Beatrice agreed.

Cecilia and Beatrice made their goodbyes, Beatrice with good natured friendliness and Cecilia with stately reserve that cracked into a smile when she looked at Abigail.

Sebastian looked after them. “I've always wondered what it would be like to do this work as a minority.” As he'd done since she first met him, he switched to English when it was the two of them. He said it was so he could practice, but she suspected he didn't like the sound of her accent. She'd caught him wincing.

Abigail gestured toward the pale expanse of his bare arm, covered in the same chestnut colored hair as his head. “You may not have realized it, but in DRC you are a minority.”

“Don't be obtuse. I meant, I wonder if it would be easier or harder working here as a black man.” He cocked his head at her. “How do you find it?”

Abigail looked down and away. The table was covered in a lurid green plastic, patterned with repeating leaves and tacky to the touch when she traced along it. “I find it the same as you do, I suppose. I'm mixed. Cecilia told me once that I look like a white person.”

“Mm.” Sebastian ran an eye over her. “I have to disagree with her on that one.”

Abigail stood. “I need to get back to the hotel and make a phone call.”

Sebastian laughed. “It isn't a bad thing. Are you sensitive about it?”

“Do you want to take a car together or would you rather find your own way back?”

“You are,” Sebastian crowed. “There's nothing to get worked up about. This is the Obama era!”

Abigail leveled a look she’d learned from her mother at him. “I'll see you back at the hotel, Sebastian.”

"Who's white, your mum or your dad?"

"Sebastian-"

"Last question, I promise."

"My mom," she said after a moment. 

"Did that ever cause any issues for you growing up?"

"I thought you already asked your last question."

He grinned. "I'm insatiably curious by nature. Fault of mine."

"No, it didn't cause any issues."

"Ah. Liar."

"I truly will leave you stranded here. Don't think I won't."

"Alright, alright. I'll keep quiet about it."

"Thank you."

As they were gathering their notebooks and laptop bags he paused. “I, err, I don't suppose you'd be interested in coming by my room later?”

**

**[Day 8: San Francisco]**

Abigail was at a conference in San Francisco when the news broke. It was a tropical medicine conference and the conference planners were quick to capitalize on the topic, organizing a panel discussion to theorize on etiologic agents and repercussions with the limited information available.

There was a hemorrhagic syndrome--etiologic agent unknown--in Rondonia state, Brazil.

Abigail looked at the hastily summoned map that had been projected onto the screen behind the panel. She thought it was Open Street Map. “God, I was just there.”

“That's right? See anyone bleeding from their eyes then?” Jenner asked. The opening PowerPoint slide stating the name of the panel had, for a few minutes until the moderator replaced it with the map, included an unfortunate visual from Pakistan of a girl with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever.

“No, no one said anything about people getting sick. I'm sure Jorge would have mentioned it. They have good surveillance in that state thanks to the university.”

“That's something at least, should give them a decent idea of the timeline.”

There were four cases: three in one of the numerous tiny farming villages that populated the fringes of the state and the fourth in a second village thirty kilometers away. The cases lived in different households and denied contact with one another in the month leading up to their illness. Two worked in agriculture but tilled separate fields. One was a baker, and the last was an adolescent boy aged thirteen. They only thing the cases demographically had on common at first brush, as far as Abigail could tell, was that they lived in the state and were among that area's poorer population.

“It's going to be a hantavirus,” Jenner said with confidence.

“You think everything is a hantavirus.”

“Hey, substandard housing situated close to a forest? That means rats, baby, and rats mean hantavirus. The new world is stupid with them. For a while there they were discovering a new one every week.”

“Yeah, but most of them don't cause illness of this severity in humans.”

“How many viruses do you know that have an associated hemorrhagic syndrome?”

Abigail drew in a breath for her list, and he hurried to specify. “New world viruses only.”

“Chapare,” she said after considering it, and he blinked.

“Didn't that affect, like, five people ten years ago and then disappear?”

On the stage, the panel was discussing the potential role of global warming in the introduction of new and re-emerging pathogens and weighing it against economic factors such as logging that brought humans deeper and deeper into the rain forest. The screen held the same concept, displayed as a venn diagram. “It was three people, eight years ago, although only one case was ever confirmed.”

“And you want to raise that as a possibility instead of a hantavirus, of which--on average--twenty five or so people contract each year? Really?”

Abigail kept her eyes on the screen. “You asked me to name a virus, and I did.”

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Jenner leaned back in his seat with a theatrical sigh.

“I'll bet you twenty bucks,” he said after a moment.

‘What will be next?’ the screen openly wondered.

“You're on,” Abigail said.

**

**[Day 11: Atlanta]**

“Gear up,” Jennifer told Abigail when she got to the office that morning, ‘office’ being a relative term as Abigail worked out of a cubicle that she shared with a colleague alternating telework days, assuming she was in Atlanta at all. “You’re going back to Brazil.”

Abigail dropped her backpack in her chair. “Brazil?”

“Have you heard about the hemorrhagic fever?”

It wasn't in the mainstream American media--the only story Abigail had seen a dry, factual short by the Associated Press--but the public health listservs were buzzing with theories and hungry for updates.

“Yeah, seven cases now, I heard.”

Jennifer's mouth was a thin line. It made her look angry, but Abigail knew from ten months working on her team that it denoted concentration. “Ten. We're waiting on confirmation from the national government, but they're highly probable.”

“So I'm going to Brazil?”

“Yes, as soon as possible. Leonard is already processing your travel orders.”

Abigail looked at her and hoped her expression didn't convey too much incredulity. She liked Jennifer. “I don't-, they don't suspect a pox virus, do they?”

“No.”

“Then why-”

Jennifer cut her off. “This is an all hands on deck situation, Abigail. The division chief is looking to get ahead of this before, God forbid, it spirals and the media gets hold of it. No one wants another Ebola epidemic.”

“Do they have any idea of the cause yet?”

“We’re expediting samples to the lab, but no matter what it turns out to be we’ll need a response operation on the ground, so get your fanny in gear.”

“I still don't see how you think I can contribute.”

“You’ve done projects there haven't you? Know the people?”

“Yes-”

“Then you'll liaise.” Jennifer turned to go, using a harried hand to push hair out of her face. “And do whatever else Mila needs.”

“Mila’s leading the investigation?” Abigail asked, but Jennifer was already around the corner and striding to the floor’s conference room.

“Well, damn,” Abigail told her cubicle.

**

**[Day 12: Brazil]**

It was fair to say that Mila wasn't a big fan of Abigail. A graduate of extended years of study at a series of ivy league schools, it was Abigail’s impression that the other woman valued degrees and educational pedigree over any other attribute, and the fact that Abigail herself at graduated Georgia State would forever be a point against her where Mila was concerned.

“She doesn't know what she's doing,” Fran hissed at Rodrigo. Fran was another VSP epidemiologist dispatched from Atlanta and Rodrigo was one of Jorge’s more helpful graduate students. He was a pleasant, baby faced young man who had been assigned to the response as a translator and assistant epidemiologist, and he looked vaguely alarmed.

“Sorry?”

“It's nothing, Rodrigo,” Abigail said. “Would you mind asking Luis if he can drive us back to the hotel?”

“Yes, Dr. Zedman.”

“Seriously though,” Fran said when he was gone, “that woman is a menace. Another review of the emergency operations plan? It's not even our document!”

“Evaluation is important.”

Fran looked across the busy conference room at Mila with a wary eye. The emergency operations center had been bunked up at the courthouse. “So is maintaining good relations with the government of the country nice enough to host us, and if she keeps pushing the governor to rewrite the plan on the middle of an ongoing response, we're going to lose some friendships.”

Jennifer had implied as much in her last email to Abigail. “It's a stressful situation. We're all doing the best we can.”

“But you do agree she doesn't know what she's doing.”

It was also fair to say that Abigail wasn't a big fan of Mila. She leaned toward her coworker. “Absolutely not.” Fran’s lips twisted in a smirk.

“Are the two of you finished with the evaluation matrix I asked you for?” Mila materialized beside their table in that eerie, quick-moving way she had. Jorge stood beside and a step behind her. Abigail gave him a quick smile.

“We’re just about done, Dr. Antigone,” Abigail told her. “Do you still want to review it over dinner tonight?”

“After dinner. I just got scheduled for a conference call with the communications team at seven. They want to review our messaging.” She grimaced, and Abigail saw Fran suppress a flinch. Mila was a tiny woman, gray-haired and intense in manner, and she was known throughout VSP for her flat, expressionless affect. She rarely smiled, frowned, or exhibited facial expressions of any type. Jenner had told Abigail once that she reminded him of Mila, and she’d socked him in the arm, overly-conscious of her smiles for a week after.

“After dinner is fine,” Abigail said, though she’d planned on calling her mom to check in. “Do you want to meet downstairs or in one of our rooms.” Jorge’s phone began to ring, and he excused himself to step away and answer it.

“Downstairs. I’d like to project the document while we go over it.”

Abigail’s phone--an older model Blackberry supplied by the Emergency Operations Center--beeped and shook on the table beside her. Then shook again. She flipped it over to check it as Jorge ended his call.

“Dr. Antigone, that was the Ministry of Health. We have identified the agent causing our outbreak. It is the Chapare virus.”

Abigail was reading the same information off of her phone. “Atlanta just confirmed it as well. They’re coordinating with the government to begin an assessment of available medical countermeasures.”

“Excellent.” Mila looked a little bit lost for a moment before giving herself a visible mental shake. “Unless I tell you otherwise, plan on meeting me at eight in the conference room. Lord knows today will be a flurry of phone calls while we evaluate our strategy, but the operations plan still needs a revamp.”

“Yes, Dr. Antigone,” Fran said as Mila walked away, Jorge following her while speaking rapid-fire Portuguese into his phone. “Damn. Chapare virus. Who would have thought?”

In lieu of a more appropriate target, Abigail frowned at the screen of her Blackberry. “Yeah.”

But they had little time to enjoy the relief at identifying the causative agent, because the next day New Zealand declared an outbreak of their own, etiology unknown. 

Then Australia did the same. 

**

**[Day 15: Atlanta]**

Abigail sat down next to Jenner, opened her email inbox, and groaned.

“I told you just to eat the pizza,” her colleague said, not looking up as he typed at his own laptop.

“We've had pizza for three days straight.”

“Hey, it's the preferred sustenance of emergency responders everywhere.”

“I was gone for twenty minutes. All I wanted was a sandwich.”

“Plus it's free and readily available in the break room.”

“How can I possibly receive two hundred emails in twenty minutes?”

Jenner patted her hand. “Task tracker is a rough gig. Hang in there Zedman.”

“Would you volunteer to Jennifer to switch with me?”

He removed his hand. “Not a chance.”

“I’ll share my sandwich,” she offered. He pointedly lifted his slice of pizza and took a big bite. A slice of pepperoni, greasy and glistening, slid off to fall on the styrofoam plate. Appetite gone, Abigail rewrapped her sandwich.

“It's tough being Atlanta bound with the rest of us plebeians, isn't it?” Jenner said. “When do you think you'll be heading out?”

“I won't be going to the Pacific. It's clearly not a pox virus, and I've never worked in that area, so I have no contacts.”

“You sure? I bet Jennifer would send you if you asked. She likes your kick-some-ass attitude.”

Abigail couldn't imagine Jennifer using the term ‘kick-some-ass’ in conversation. “I'd just be in the way. Besides, now that Brazil is getting a handle on the Chapare outbreak, the government is requesting help with the vaccination drive."

"Yeah. Good thing they had a candidate vaccine ready to go."

"After the last and only Chapare outbreak, and Brazilian pharmaceutical firm began research in the event an epidemic. We're just lucky the strain didn't evolve over the last eight years so the vaccine is expected to work. If I get approved to travel I'd probably leave in a week or two.”

“And miss all this?” Jenner gestured toward the cramped conference space that had been assigned to the Epidemiology Task Force for the response to Australia and New Zealand. Enlarged photos of responders in the field adorned the walls, many of them in khaki colored vests marked ‘CDC’ that Abigail had never seen in real life. The window to outside was frosted for privacy, but Abigail could see a sliver of sky at the very top where the coating stopped short of the ceiling.

“I'd carry on somehow,” she told Jenner.

Unable to bring herself to begin to sort the emails sitting in the Task Tracker group box, she instead opened her individual email, expecting and finding an email from Janet, her friend in the Lyssavirus team. Abigail had known Tanisha for years--their friendship forged over two years of shared lunches in the building cafeteria--and at some point they’d fallen into the habit of sending one another brief emails while deployed: shorthand snapshots of the investigation on the ground.

“Send coffee,” this one read. “May be driven to risk death by seeking cocaine to keep awake.”

Jenner read over her shoulder. “Tanisha still in New Zealand?”

“Indonesia. They have some suspect cases, and she was there last month working on the rabies serosurvey.”

Jenner shook his head. “Bizarre, isn't it? And they're sure it's not Chapare?”

“Ruth said that was the first thing they tested for, even though it would have strained credibility to have it jump so far. I don't know if there is even a competent vector species for Chapare in that part of the world. Besides, their outbreak seems respiratory and there hasn't been an associated hemorrhagic syndrome in any of the eight cases.”

“We live in interesting times, my friend.” Jenner shot her a slanted smile. “Any guesses on what this one is? You were dead on last time.”

“I have no idea.”

“Come on, guess. The worst that'll happen is we'll be tied.”

“You think you know what it is?” Abigail asked rather than answer.

“I do. Or I have a guess at any rate. Reston.”

“That's a terrible guess. Reston virus has never been known to infect people.”

“So it mutated.”

“And it's highly pathogenic in monkeys. Where's the evidence of that? None of the three countries has reported an uptick in dead or dying primates.”

“Did I not just say mutation?”

“It's still a terrible guess.”

“Then what's your suspect agent, Dr. Zedman?”

Abigail looked back toward her screen and began composing a response to Tanisha. “I told you, I don't have one.”

“Spoilsport.”

“If you have this much free time, I'm telling Jennifer you volunteered to help me with task tracking.”

“You're cold, Zedman,” he told her when she resolutely opened the group box and began wading through the emails. The count now read three hundred. “Like ice, I tell you.”

**

It didn't take long for the Australian National lab to pinpoint Hendra virus as the cause of the outbreak. Why it was surfacing now, and in three countries no less, where previously there had been only seven recorded cases was unknown. WHO had their hands full trying to organize a regional response, and no one--no one outside of the media at any rate--had any time to speculate.

“Those poor horses,” Ruth said, round face pulled down in misery as she watched the news ticker about the cull at a second horse ranch. “This breaks my heart.”

“There's nothing they can do for them, and horses are a reservoir for Hendra.” Abigail said. “It's the most humane move.”

“I don't see how. It's already in the bats, isn't it?”

“Flying foxes.” Abigail had been treated to a long explanation on the usage of the term by Tanisha the last time she'd returned from the region. “It is horrible, but at least now that they know what's causing the outbreak they can come up with a plan to end it before anyone else gets sick. They're fast tracking and equine vaccine that's been in development.”

“What's the most recent case count?”

“Ten cases with five fatalities. Not as bad as it could have been, all things considered.”

“You're a good girl, Abigail.” Ruth minimized the news website. “What can I help you with today?”

“Have you had a chance to turn around my equipment? I finally got approval to go back to Brazil.”

“To work with Fran?”

Abigail shook her head. “No, Fran went to Australia this morning.”

“Goodness, I just can’t keep track with how much y’all are jetting around. Did you know Michael Rogers is in London trapping sewer rats? And Wilma is in Cambodia.” She winked. “I asked her to take a picture of Angkor Wat for me. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Oh, something to do with hantaviruses, I think. You know that group. I’m sure I could dig up the project summary if you’d like to see it.”

“That’s alright. I get more than enough from Jenner. He’s been wanting to move into hantaviruses for years.”

“That Paul,” Ruth turned to her computer, keystrokes deft and rapid, “he’s always looking for the next bit of excitement. Adrenaline junkie, I think.”

Abigail knew Jenner to spend most of his away from the office playing board games and occasionally departing Atlanta for day hikes. “I suppose.”

“Your equipment is ready, dear. Let me just grab it for you.” Ruth moved to lever herself out of the seat.

“No, no, it’s alright. I can get it. Is it in the closet?”

Ruth sank back down. “Bless you, child. You have a good heart.”

Abigail blushed and hoped Ruth couldn’t see it. Her skin tone was dark enough that it wasn’t always obvious. “So do you. I’ve always appreciated that you take the time to-”

“Abigail, good.” Jennifer strode into the room. Her hair, usually pulled neatly back into a bun, was straggling over one shoulder. “Do you still have a current yellow fever vaccination?”

“Yes...”

“Good, because you’re not going to Brazil.”

Abigail looked at her, the tiniest of shivers coalescing in her spine. “Where am I going?”

Jennifer looked at her grimly.

**[Day 25: DRC]**

It took them a week to identify Lujo virus in Kinshasa. An exceptionally rare virus with only a single outbreak on record in 2008 in Southern Africa, the laboratories ruled out all other viral hemorrhagic fevers--including Ebola and Lassa--before testing for Lujo in a virology Hail Mary. By then it had spread through a third of the city's municipalities.

“I do not understand,” Cecilia told Abigail at dinner that night. The group in the hotel restaurant was listless, as they often were after a long day toiling in full protective gear and report after report of fatalities and new cases. “They say it is in the rats.”

“We don’t know much about this virus,” Abigail said, navigating the French clumsily in her fatigue. She’d been working nonstop since her arrival in the DRC, and the work continued to grow. “There were only five cases once several years ago, and then it ended. Usually viruses of this type are carried in rats or bats. Because the outbreak is in Kinshasa, we think rats are more likely.”

“But how are the rats giving it to the people? We do not eat rats.”

“It is likely the first cases were in rats, or maybe a bat, but now it is in the people. The people are giving it to those who care for them.”

“The nurses, you mean.”

“And the doctors, yes.”

Cecilia did not respond, and for a time the only sound in the hushed space was the murmurs of Abigail’s colleagues and the MSF doctors who shared the hotel. They were the most grim of all, walking around with deep circles under their eyes and looks of horror on their faces. Abigail had been introduced to a handful of them, but she couldn’t remember any of their names.

“I think that God is punishing us.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Abigail said, uncertain how to respond. “Keep hope. We know what the virus is now. We will be able to stop it.” The global pharmaceutical apparatus had begun initial research into a vaccine, but unlike Chapare and Hendra, the groundwork had not already been laid. 

Without warning, Cecilia’s eyes flooded.

“What’s the matter? Are you alright?” Abigail asked, alarmed.

“My sister is not a nurse. She is not a doctor, and she does not eat rats or bats.” Dark eyes swimming in tears locked on Abigail’s own.

“Is she in PTC II?” Abigail asked, naming the closest testing and treatment center. Abigail had been given a tour once, in the 'clean' nontreatment areas. She'd been surprised, somehow, by the sheer number of buckets. Buckets for cleaning, for water, and for waste. The smell of bleach had been prevalent. 

Cecilia nodded once.

“I know the doctors working at PTC II. They are very good at what they do. Please, don’t give up. You know about the epidemics in Brazil and Australia? We’ve almost stopped those. We’ll stop this one as well.”

“Perhaps.” Cecilia dabbed her eyes with the napkin. Her face was already composed, the remote expression that Sebastian had referenced, but which Abigail was rarely subjected to. “But what will be left?”

**

“I just feel so useless, Mom,” she said into the phone later that night. The cell phone was an ungainly block that she’d purchased for a few dollars at the market. The sound was staticky, but it rarely dropped calls, and it came with a flashlight built into the top. Abigail flipped it on and off as she talked, watching the light strobe on the ceiling. “People are dying, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“You are stopping it, baby. You’re there, working in the mobile lab, exposing yourself to danger even though you don’t have to-”

“Mom, we’ve been over this.” Flash, flash went the light. Abigail played briefly with the idea of spelling out S-O-S. “I’m not in danger., not really.”

“Well, I just don’t see how that can possibly be true, Abigail. The news said hundreds of people have gotten sick, maybe thousands.”

“There have been just over two hundred cases with eighty two fatalities, Mom. I’m being careful, I promise.”

“I know you are, baby girl, I just...” Her mom trailed off, the dot-dot-dot of a sentence left unspoken that had defined so much of Abigail’s childhood. “I just wish I understood what you’re doing.”

You just wish you understood me you mean, Abigail thought but didn’t say. “I’m very safe, Mom, I promise. You should see the hotel they put us up in. We have drivers to take us everywhere and a security team at the lab twenty-four seven. It’s shameful, really, especially when you compare it to how most people in the country live.”

“You know I’m proud of you, honey. Please, stay safe.”

“I will, Mom. Give my love to Dad, okay?”

They said their goodbyes, and Abigail lay in her bed for a time watching the moon descend, its shape a sickly, fading crescent. When it set, she turned her back to the window and resolutely shut her eyes.

**

**[Day 45: Atlanta]**

“Cheer up, Abs,” Jenner said. “I know it's bad--Lord knows I've looked at the epi data in a thousand and one different ways, all of which make my heart hurt--but we're going to overcome it. We stopped Ebola. We can stop this too.”

He'd ambushed her in the breakroom. The offices devoted to the poxvirus team were almost deserted, the majority of the staff working feverishly in the Emergency Operations Center on the Lujo response. Abigail had managed to sneak in and out during the first two days of her mandatory rest period in Atlanta without being caught in conversation about the scale of the outbreak, and everyone had been respectful of her red Do Not Disturb sign on her cubicle. It wasn't so much that she was avoiding her peers as it was that she was avoiding any interaction that replayed the images in her head, vivid colorful snapshots of fear and Cecilia’s shattered face. Abigail had been with her when she received the news about her sister.

“I'm alright, Paul, really.” She looked outside at the line of gleaming black cars lined along the typically empty roadway. CDC was hosting an emergency action conference in response to the Lujo outbreak. WHO leadership, ministers of health, and a number of congressmen were in attendance. The antennas of the news vans at the gate rose like oversized pikes, waiting for a metaphorical head to display to all and sundry.

“Well, I wasn't worried before, but now I most certainly am. You never call me Paul.” Jenner set himself in front of her, a human barrier an inch shorter and two decades older than herself with thinning hair and an open, kind expression.

Her eyes welled, and she turned away.

“Hey now, what's this about?”

“I'm sorry.” She wiped the tears away. “It's just...sad.”

He waited as she composed herself. “Have I ever told you about how I started at CDC?” She shook her head. “It was 1985. I came on board as a public health advisor in the STD program. There were a lot of us in those days, PHAs. We made up almost half of the boots on the ground supporting public health programs in the states. Anyway, I was assigned out in California in the Bay Area.” He peered at her. “I can see from your face that you have an idea where this is going.”

“HIV.”

“Yeah, the public's introduction to AIDS. It felt like it came out of nowhere and transformed the world of public health like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It's hard to describe how much fear there was. For a while it felt like the virus touched on every aspect of our lives. It was everywhere.”

“What did you do?”

“What we all do when our world is upended: keep moving forward.” He placed a companionable hand on her shoulder. “Take a breath, allow yourself the time and space to grieve and recalibrate, then recover your perspective and keep fighting.”

“I'm just not sure what perspective I'm supposed to be seeing here. People are dying. So many have already died.”

The hand squeezed once and then released. “Then forget the thing about perspective and skip right to the fighting part. You're a warrior, Abs. I knew that from the first moment I met you.”

Abigail laughed and wiped away more wetness. “You're a nut, Jenner.”

“Part of my charm.”

“But you're also a good guy.”

“I won't tell if you won't. Are you feeling any better?”

She took internal stock. She was still sad, still angry that a country that had so little should be forced to endure so much, but it no longer felt as though it was moments from crushing her. “I do, strangely enough.”

“Community, Zedman. It's a thing. Your colleagues know what you're going through. You should talk to them, share the burden and all.” He shot a pointed look down the hall at the red sign on her cubicle, all the more articulate for his rumpled tie and the creases around his eyes.

“I know, I know,” she acknowledged. “I wasn't trying to close myself away. I guess I just felt as though everyone was burdened enough. It feels like it's been nonstop.”

“Yeah well, buckle up, Zedman, because it's only going to get busier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Word is that they just isolated Omsk in a vole just outside of London.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Weird, right? I had no idea they had voles in England. It'd be major news if we weren't up to our eyeballs in Lujo. As it is, I think Jennifer is going to set up a second task force to liaise with Public Health England."

“Who isolated the virus?”

“It was happenstance really, a veterinary university project to keep the doctoral students busy and give them experience running samples. I guess one of the bright young things wanted practice testing for more esoteric agents, screened for Omsk, and there it was. No human cases yet. PHE confirmed the result.”

Something unpleasant and certain kindled in Abigail’s chest. “Jenner, doesn't something about all of this seem wrong to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“We've had an arenavirus in Brazil that we'd only seen once before in Colombia, a disease that was previously restricted to parts of Western Australia suddenly spreading across the region, a viral hemorrhagic fever from Zambia jumping to Kinshasa, and now this, a flavivirus in Russian muskrats appearing in the United Kingdom? I mean, what are the odds?”

“It's strange, I grant you-”

“It's more than strange. It defies probability.”

The setting autumn sun streamed through the break room windows in muddy red streaks that painted their faces.

“What are you trying to say, Abigail?” Jenner asked.

“I'm saying they're all Category A agents on the registry of select agents and toxins, Paul. They require a BSL-4 laboratory.”

She saw when the same suspicion that had been niggling at the back of her mind began to take shape in his.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh dear.”

**

The lights were off when they reached the offices of BSL-4 lab. Abigail placed her badge on the card reader, but the light remained red. “Damnit.”

“You don't have twenty four hour access. Here.” Jenner used his own badge, and the lock clicked open. “We won't be able to get into the lab itself. Only a handful of people have access, and I'm not one of them.”

Abigail swung the door open and flipped the light switch. It may have been a fancy on her part born of her new, terrible suspicion, but the office seemed shadowed even with the illumination. “We don't need to get into the lab.”

“I still don't know what you expect to find.”

"It's okay. I know what I want." Abigail moved to the closet and opened it. Silver Pelican cases gleamed inside.

“Can I help you two with something?”

Abigail whirled to see Ruth standing in the doorway, frowning at her quizzically.

Jenner looked between them. “Uh, hi Ruth.”

“What are you doing, Abigail?”

Abigail tried to think of a believable excuse, discarded the ones that came to mind, and decided she had no interest in doing this the easy way. “We know what you've been doing?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It's over, Ruth.” Abigail returned her gaze to the equipment cases in front of her, no longer able to continue looking at the woman she'd thought of as a friend. She found the case with the virulent smiley face sticker and grasped the handle.

“Young lady, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about you infecting the trapping equipment with viruses from the BSL-4 lab and turning VSP into epidemic vectors.” She turned, case in hand. “Why did you do it, Ruth? What could possibly be worth doing something so horrible?”

Ruth moved slowly inside and seated herself heavily on her computer chair. The list of Category A viruses was visible over her right shoulder, framed by her presence.

“Abigail, child, I am at a loss. I truly am.”

“They sequenced the Chapare and Lujo viruses that have been circulating during the outbreaks. They're identical to the strains we've maintained in the lab since they were initially isolated. Identical, Ruth.”

“I still don't see how that has anything to do with me.”

Hand down by his side, Jenner pulled out his cell phone and gave Abigail a questioning look. She shook her head minutely.

“I couldn't move past the fact that these viruses seem to be following the VSP epidemiologists around,” Abigail said. “I was in Rondonia and then there was Chapare in Rondonia. I was in Kinshasa and then there was Lujo in Kinshasa.”

“Tanisha was in Australia and Indonesia,” Jenner said. “She was trapping and sampling flying foxes for rabies research.”

“And you told me yourself that the hantavirus team has been doing work in London trapping rodents.”

“Abigail, I don't-”

“Save it, Ruth,” Abigail said, surprising herself with her volume. “We know it was you. You infected our equipment so we'd pass the viruses onto the animals we caught and released during our research projects. You knowingly released four deadly pathogens around the globe. You killed all those people!”

Ruth didn't answer at once, and the ticking of her Minnie Mouse clock was loud in the silent office. “Do you know how much our budget has been cut over the last decade?” She asked at last.

“You did this for _money_?”

“I did this,” Ruth's voice wavered with emotion, “for the world. Year after year the funding for public health is cut. Some jurisdictions have lost as much as seventy percent of their workforce, and all the while our antibiotics become less effective while the world's population becomes sicker and more mobile. It was only a matter of time before the next outbreak hit and overwhelmed the emaciated systems we've been left with.”

“So you decided to help it along, is that it?”

“It was controlled,” Ruth said, shouting herself now. “I knew where you all were going and which species you were planning on trapping. The viruses aren't transmissible person to person, and we have candidate vaccines for all of them.”

“ _Lujo_ is transmissible person to person, or did you miss the most recent fatality count out of Kinshasa?”

“I needed something bigger,” Ruth said after a moment, and Abigail had to force herself not to punch her. “The media didn't pay attention to the Chapare outbreak, and the Hendra response wasn't in the news cycle for more than a week. The only way to get the attention of governments is to get the attention of the people in the government, and the best way to do that is through the imagination of the public. Unfortunately we're a fickle, unfocused lot. Only the most shocking and lurid of stories seem to engage us anymore.” Her face, which Abigail had always found so kind, twisted with derision and the inward burning fire of fanaticism.

“I could have been infected too. Did that ever occur to you? Do you even care?”

“Oh, I knew you would be fine, Abigail. You're always so careful.”

“They're going to arrest you.” Abigail’s voice trembled, in rage or grief, she didn't know herself. “You're going to go to prison, and you're going to deserve every moment you spend there.”

Ruth stared at her for a beat and then she nodded, expression returning to its sweet, caring mask. She even smiled. “You do what you think is best, dear. Just know that if this story gets out, there will be a great many people who will never trust CDC again.”

Ruth pushed herself out of her chair. “Well now, if you two will excuse me, I'm going to go home and enjoy my last night of freedom.” She picked up her lunch box and purse. “Good evening to you both.”

Jenner looked uncertain, as though he wondered if he should be restraining her, but Abigail waved him back.

“She won't get far,” she said when Ruth was gone. “We know who she is, and now that we know how she did it she won't be able to infect any more equipment. Let the police take care of it.”

Jenner looked about to plop into Ruth's vacated chair then thought better of it and leaned against the desk instead. “I assume a call to security is in order though, right? We need to deactivate her access to the lab immediately. And, oh God, someone needs to call Jennifer.”

“We'll need to reach out to everyone in the field with trapping equipment. I don't know how many sets there are in total.” Abigail looked down at the smiling case in her hand. “I just can't believe this. She was always so nice.”

“Yeah well, you never know what some people are concealing no matter how innocuous the exterior.”

Jenner dialed Jennifer at home while Abigail looked around the office with eyes freshened by Ruth's betrayal. The kitten was still hanging to its rope, claws extended and tenacious.

The same whisper of intuition that had haunted Abigail during her time in Kinshasa began to murmur. <i>The only way to get the attention of governments</i>, Ruth had said. “Paul, is the director still meeting with the congressmen and ministers of health?”

“Yeah, I think so. It was supposed to last until six.”

Abigail glanced at the clock. It was five forty. “Where is the meeting?”

“In the Global Communications Center, Auditorium A. What are you thinking? Abs?”

But Abigail was already running. Foregoing the elevator for the stairs she sprinted down and slammed through the exterior door, hair streaming behind her. The campus was darkening, the paved walking paths illuminated in irregular fits and starts by puddles of light cast by lamps that were just igniting.

Abigail caught sight of Ruth's silhouette halfway down the path, near the memorial, a solemn and understated arch of granite that overlooked a still pool of water.  

Hearing her steps, Ruth turned, mouth opening to say something as she fumbled with her lunch box, but Abigail didn't wait up hear it. She tackled the other woman off the path and onto the grass. Ruth went down with an aborted cry of shock, but the sound was dwarfed by the yell of outrage she made when Abigail wrestled the Betty Boop lunch box from her grip.

Abigail opened it. Inside, safely nestled in cushioning and ice packs, was a labeled vial.

“You little fool!” Ruth shouted, struggling to rise. Behind her, Abigail could see a pair of campus security guards coming to investigate. “Can't you see I'm doing this for you? For us all?”

Ruth reached for the lunch box again, and Abigail pulled it away, moving closer to the memorial of her colleagues who had died in the line of duty, the names of those who had died working to stem the tide of diseases around the world.

“Go to hell, Ruth,” she said. Then the guards reached them.

**

**[Day 50: Atlanta]**

In the end there was almost a cover up.

“Cover up is such an unkind word,” Jenner said when she met him in the pub across the street from campus and told him about her meeting with the center chief. Jennifer had been there as well. It had been her third time hearing Abigail’s recounting of what Ruth had done, and each time her face turned a little grayer.

“They wanted to keep it quiet. What else would you call it?”

“They wanted to delay officially notifying the Health and Human Services Secretary while they investigated internally.”

“That's a cover up.”

Jenner shrugged and turned his pint between his palms. “Maybe in a way. But I know that at least part of the reason Jennifer was hoping to delay the media circus was so we could focus on getting the Lujo outbreak under control. You know that with the storm this is going to cause, the response can't help but be affected.”

“I know.” Abigail had thought long and hard about it. She'd even called her mom, and they'd spoken about the situation for hours. It was the longest conversation they'd had in years.

“Nothing good comes from shadows, Abigail,” her mom had said, and Abigail repeated it now. “It may be the easy, comfortable solution, but that doesn't make it the right one.”

“Yeah, I suppose you're right,” Jenner said with a smile. It was a little sad. “Still, it's hard to knowingly bring pain to the agency I love.”

“I know. But I realized I couldn't live with any other decision. We'll get through it.”

“Yes, we will.” He raised his glass, and even though they were both halfway through their drinks she lifted her wine glass to meet him. “Here's to fighting the good fight.”

“With the best people,” she said, and he grinned.

They toasted.


End file.
